AMERICA- US national and regional LT Chmpshps - Canadian LT Championship

UNITED KINGDOM- British Long Track racing. - Sand Racing Championship

LONG TRACK RACINGUnder
the FIM designation of “Track Racing,” covering Speedway, Long
Track and Ice Racing, Long Track racing in mainland Europe and
Scandinavia embraces competitions on grass, dirt and sand surfaces,
with track lengths of the latter generally in the region of 500m - 1000m,
(v. 425m. maximum for speedway.)The
World Championship GP series, with rounds commonly in France, Holland, Germany
and Czechia, (- see 'World Champions' page for details of Long Track
world champs,) includes tracks
of grass and sand, - termed Langbahn or Sandbahn in German - , and
with laps of a kilometre or more speeds can average over 140kph per
lap, (90mph ave.) Often on Trotting tracks or horse race tracks,
similar races are held in Australia and New Zealand, where Ivan
Mauger set a world record average lap speed of 144.66kph back in 1986
which still stands.Much
Long Track racing on the continent takes place on Holy Days and
holidays, and in Germany it's more popular than speedway. The
competition may be one of just 2 or 3 ‘track’ meetings, (or even
the circuit’s only event,) that the club holds in a season and so
is often staged in conjunction with the local authority on a big
scale alongside other festival activities, drawing large crowds. Such
big events, - speedway or Long Track - , generate sizeable Appearance
moneys which attracted top speedway riders from the UK on many Sunday
afternoons prior to the removal of the Iron Curtain and the opening
of the Polish speedway league to British riders. (The name Mauger can
be seen throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s amongst many lists of
winners.)

DESIGNATION
VARIANTS The European
Long Track Championshipwas
the forerunner of the World Long Track Championship, staged initially
(following 2 unofficial evaluation stagings in the preceding years,)
in 1957, when it was termed the European
1000m Championship.
After the World LT title was established a European Grass Track
championship was established, see Grass Track page for detail.In
Holland
a national 'Grass
Track Championship'
has been staged continuously since 1956, it being the most popular
form of track racing in the Netherlands. But after the pre-War 'Track
Racing Championships',
- raced on grass - , the first national titles in the '50s were
staged on a cinder track as the 'Long
Track Championship'
until the grass title was re-instated. The
UK-staged 'British
Sand Racing Championship'
does not equate to continental "Sandbahnrennen", (which can
be a sand dressing on worn grass or a deeper bed of sand on earth.)
Raced on the Channel Island of Guernsey, the event takes place on a
sandy beach at low tide; see below.

EUROPEAN LONG TRACK CHAMPIONSHIP

55

A European Long Track Championship was first staged in the hugh Strahov Stadium, Prague, a 672yd. (614m.) track with a sand surface in 1937. Winner was Austrian Martin Schneeweiss, with West Ham's Arthur Atkinson claiming the FICM title a year later. Post WWII, Leif 'Basse' Hveem took three titles as the event moved back into official status, (as the FIM 1000m European Championship) in 1957, and Germans Josef Hofmeister and Manfred Poschenreider also went on to each score hat-tricks. The championship subsequently became the Long Track World Championship in 1971.

1958 EM Final, Muhldorf, W.Gy.

GERMANY, AUSTRIA & NETHERLANDS

GermanyThe
German national Long Track Championship has been dominated since 1988
by Gerd Riss with 10 wins, and Robert Barth with 6 successes. Prior
to their time Karl Maier won the title 8 times and Egon Muller 6,
pre-unification. All four riders have appeared in speedway World
Finals and/or SGPs, (Barth only in SGPs,) with Muller emerging as
speedway World Champion in 1983.

Prior
to unification an East German Championship was also held, and early
champion Hans Zierk had the most successes with 7: he later gained
wider fame as an engine tuner par excellence for many top
international riders, both Long Track and speedway, from Briggo thru
to Gerd Riss.

Riss, (seen rt,)
from Bad Wurzach in Wurttemberg, also dominated the Southern German
Long Track Championship with 12 wins between 1988 and '2009, but in
the Northern equivalent competition it was Egon Muller that amassed
the greatest number of championship wins, - 14 over a 22 year period.
However Muller's accumulated total of 25 successes across all the
above tabled championships (plus 'Grass Track' wins on the preceding
page,) failed to approach those of Riss, with a staggering 46 titles.
The Swabian finally retired aged 45 after sustaining extensive leg
and body injuries which resulted from a crash in the French round of
the 2010 LT Grand Prix series.

In
2014 Erik Riss, younger son of Gerd, won the German National title: he also took the World
Long Track Championship at his first attempt, the youngest ever
winner at 19 years old. ( photographed in action, further down the page.)

Austria In 1936 Austria ran a 'Motorcycle Track Racing Championship' over 4 rounds concluding at the Krieau trotting track in Vienna, (a dirt course still in equestrian use today.) Other venues included both grass and dirt surfaces. Races for 250cc, 350cc and 500cc classes were staged, though only the 250 and 350 championships were given official status by the national authority, the Supreme National Sports
Commission of Austrian Automobile Clubs. Perhaps because of political unrest the next known championships weren't until the early 1950s when Fritz Dirtl, 3-times national speedway champion and the 1949 winner of the Czech Golden Helmet, proceeded to add 3 consecutive Long Track championships to his score. A number of championships were also staged in the 1960s.

Netherlands The Dutch national 'Motorcycle Track Racing Championship' pre-War was staged mostly on grass circuits but when the Alkmaar trotting track, the venue for the majority of events, was resurfaced with cinder in the '46/'47 winter, the KNMV sanctioned not a grass-track but a 'Long Track Championship' when re-instating their national competition in 1950. On the new Alkmaar track Tinus Metzelaar took the LT title 4 times in the first five years. With grass so popular in the Netherlands, a national 'Grass Track Championship' was established in '56 and the Long Track title was phased out as the decade ended: the grass event has continued uninterrupted to the present day.

ADAC GOLDEN HELMET

The
German automobile association, ADAC, have annually since 1956 on a
rotational basis at tracks in the North, South and central Germany,
put up for Long Track competition a Golden Helmet trophy. Although
in the last decade the trophies, new each year, have been well
distributed, including a Danish, Dutch and British winner, Gerd Riss
has totalled 8 wins over a 20 year period. Other successes were
gained by Manfred Poschenreider 5 times, Alois Wiesbock 4x, Josef
Hofmeister 3x, Ivan Mauger 2x, Wigg 2x, Tatum 2x, plus speedway World
Champions Knutsson, Lee and Muller. In 2013 Englishman Andrew
Appleton took both the Gold and the Pfalz Silver Helmet, below.1978 ADAC GH, Altrip.

ADAC-Pfalz Sandbahn SILVER HELMET

A
prestigious Open International Long Track competition, the ADAC-Pfalz
Silver Helmet, - "Silberhelm" - , has been held annually in
Herxheim, Germany for over 50 years and has always attracted star
speedway and Long/Grass Track riders for the much-coveted trophy.
Periodically Herxheim is nominated to hold the annual ADAC Golden
Helmet competition, (above,) when it substitutes the regional ADAC's
silver headgear, the last occasion being 2015 and won by Jonas Kilmakorpi.

Historically,
Josef Hofmeister and Manfred Poschenreider each had 5 wins in the
early years, until international participation in the form of Don
Godden, UK, and Ole Olsen, Denmark, made its impact in the 1970s.
Again Gerd Riss dominated another track competition with 11 wins from
1988 onward, interrupted only by Brit Kelvin Tatum in the early ‘00s
with his 5 wins. Other successes were achieved by Simon Wigg and
Marvyn Cox from GB, and Hans Nielsen of Denmark.

above: Gerd Riss, 2009 Herxheim ADAC Golden Helmet winner

As
well as 2 variants of its Long Track course, - 1000m. and 963m. - ,
Herxheim has 2 speedway tracks, 283m. and 190m. in length. The photo
right illustrates the size difference between speedway and Long
tracks. The smaller speedway track is used for training. The 963m
(inner) Sandbahn presents bends of 2 different sizes in order to test
riders abilities and make for greater spectator appeal.

below: Manfred Poschenreider, 1968 European
Sandbahn (= World LongTrack) ChampionshipFrom the mid-'60 on Manfred Poschenreider had an amazing decade of Long
Track successes, winning 3 consecutive World Championships (then termed the
European 1000m Chmpshp,) and 5 rostrum placings, 3 West German national
Championships, 5 ADAC Golden Helmets and 5 Pfalz/Herxheim helmet
successes.

demonstrating the
importance of aerodynamics necessary for Long Track
speed.

Erik Riss, 2014 German & World Long Track Champion

EASTERN EUROPE & USSR STATES

CZECHO(SLOVAKIA)12-times
Czech speedway champion Jiri Stancl added 6 national Long Track
titles to his collection whilst in more recent times Zdenek
Schneiderwind (photo rt,) also achieved 6 championship wins. The
competition has been 'open' to non-nationals in latter years.

USSR
/ RUSSIALong
Track championships for both the collective USSR states and for the
state of Russia have been raced for annually, as they have for
speedway championships. Both Tarabankov and Klytchkov have done the
double, taking the Russian and the USSR LT championships in one
season, and Vladimir Gordeev has won a speedway and an LT
championship in the same year.

ESTONIAAs
well as hosting the Soviet Union's LT championship the Hippodrome in
Tallin also staged its own national Long Track Championship. Local
boy Rene Aas, (photo rt,) runner-up in the U21 Speedway World Championship
in 1990 (ahead of Tony Rickardsson in 3rd place,) took his country's
LT title in the following 2 years and went on to join Sheffield
Tigers in 1993. (He is now domiciled in the UK.)

EAST
GERMANYThe
former communist East Germany Long Track champions are listed above
with West Germany + the unified state. Only once in the decade of the
'50s did Hans Zierk (photo rt,) fail to win the East German LT title. He
relocated to the West in 1960, taking NBM titles and subsequently
became famed for engine tuning, including for Briggo, Wigg, Tatum and
Riss.

ROMANIA & HUNGARYRomanian Dirt Track championships were held in the early years of motorcycle sport at Baslov and Bucharest, including at the ¾-mile track in the capital's velodrome. Nicolae Ionescu-Cristea (seen rt, #3,) was a 4-time winner..It is believed that Tivadar Zamecsnik won a similar Hungarian Track Championship in 1932, but information on racing in the Magyar state at this period in time is limited.

UKRAINE & TURKMENISTANLittle
is known about Long Track racing in these 2 former USSR states. One
time Ukrainian Ice race champion Vladimir Forostyanya relocated to the
central Asian country of Turkmenistan around 1980 and proceeded to take 6
national Long Track championships there in the subsequent years.

FINLAND Long
Track racing in Finland and a corresponding national LT championship
was established well before a speedway national championship, - 1936
v/v 1955 - , and the championship has been held every year without
fail since '36 other than the war years. (Results of the 1975 final
were declared void because of a rule infringement.)

Jari
Kortelainen has been the most successful rider with 7 titles gained
between 1988 and 2001; Timo Laine (photo rt,) took 6 titles between 1962
and '72.

NORWAY Here
also Long Track racing has prominence, the Norwegian LT championship
having been established in 1932, the same year as a speedway
championship. There was a lull in the '90s but in the present century
the championship has been upheld. Jon Odegaard in the '60s & '70s
had 6 national successes but the record of Leif 'Basse' Hveem (photo rt,)
is unsurpassed. He dominated the post-war scene and took 8 national
Long Track titles plus 8 'Nordic LT Championship' wins (in addition
to 9 speedway nationals,) between 1946 and 1957.

DENMARK The
Danish Long Track championship was initiated shortly after their
Northern neighbours but has fallen from the sporting calendar over
the last decade, primarily because of the closure of Long Tracks such
as Charlottenburg and Korskro, - Danish club SM Gandrup holds its
DMU-status Long Track meetings across the border at Jübek in
Germany: see p.GH5 for Gold Bar and Gold Bear LTs - , and because of
the pre-eminence of speedway following the nation's international
successes on the shorter tracks. Former Cradley and Belle Vue rider
Kristian Praestbro was a 5x LT winner in the 1970s but outstanding
amongst Scandinavian title holders is Kurt W.Pedersen (photo rt,) who
dominated the regional scene from 1959 to 1969, i.e. after Hveem's
retirement, with 11 consecutive championship wins. KWP had rides with
Norwich in 1961 but was unable to show the same form on The Firs
relatively smaller 425 yard circuit that he was capable of at home,
even though he was also the contemporaneous Danish speedway champ.
1953 Long Track Chmpshp, Aarhus Trotting track.

SWEDEN Sweden's
Long Track involvement at national level has been more spasmodic:
there were national championships staged pre-war, whilst the 1981
final was stated to be the first official event and the competition
in the two preceding years at least having 'unoffical' status. Former
Monarch and Heathen Bernt Persson (photo rt,) won that first post-war
official, with the last in 1995 an 'open' event won by Norwegian
Gjermund Aas, (making him a unique triple winner across the region by
taking the Long Track championships of Norway, Finland and Sweden in
turn, plus the combined Nordic title.)

NORDIC
CHAMPIONSHIP First
raced for as early as 1926, data on this event though thus far
incomplete, does show the early superiority of Engstrom (DK) and
Hveem (NY) pre- and post-war, and the Finnish and Norwegian
predominance over the last decade through a number of various riders.

With
Australia being acknowledged by most as the birthplace of speedway
many of the showground tracks that ran speedway would, by size at
least, constitute being 'Long Tracks', i.e. greater than 440yds or
425m. As early as the mid- 1920s "5-Mile Dirt Track
Championships", national and state, were being contested, - 5
laps of a 1 mile circuit, in various classes - , in which Billy
Conoulty on his Douglas (below left,) had many successes.

Billy Conoulty 1925 Chris Watson 1995

However
the first modern day Long Track Championships were staged post-war at
the 1-mile Port Pirie track in the state of South Australia,
(designated 'Australian 5ml. Motorcycle Speed Championships', and
with an 'Unlimited' top class which often featured 1000cc bikes
alongside JAPs and ESOs,) where UK-based Provincial Lge riders like
Geof Mudge, Ivan Mauger and 3x-winner Jack Scott were successful
champs.

In
the last 20 years, on shorter alternating venues, - Port Pirie became
a ½ml. track from 1967 onward - , Long Track championship meetings
have again been staged, pulling in international LT riders from
Europe including World Champions such as Simon Wigg, Kelvin Tatum and
Gerd Riss, most frequently for promotions of national Championships
and Grand Prix run by former champion Ivan Mauger, and coupled with
similar events in New Zealand.

The
most successful Anzac over this period has been Aussie Chris Watson,
(above rt,) who has taken 6 Oz Championships and GPs as well as 3 New
Zealand titles over a 20 year period between his first in '89/90 and
his latest in NZ in Nov. 2010. (See also the Australasia page.)

USAWhilst
the above competitions are principally ½ mile events, (800 metres,)
a few Long Track championships have been at ¼ml. venues as the
majority of US speedway tracks are a mere 1/8 mile, (200 metres,) and
hence anything greater is perceived as Long Track. Ascot Park in Los
Angeles had both ¼ml and ½ml circuits and the promotion has staged
race meetings on consecutive nights on alternate tracks. Bikes are
rarely the extended frame of European machines but are the standard
speedway frame and used on all size circuits. Long Track racing
today is almost exclusively in Ohio at the Canton and Wauseon tracks
promoted by former champion Scotty Brown.

CANADAAs
part of Canada's Flat Track racing programme Long Track championships
were established in the '80s. After 2000 the championship events were
incorporated into the Speedway 'Series' championship, (see
'Alternative Championships' on the America page.) Speedway champions
Len Dillon and John Kehoe dominated the event and added the Long
Track accolade to their collection of championships.

GREAT BRITAIN - Long Track Racing - Sand Racing Championship. - LONG TRACK RACING No
Long Track national championships have ever been established in UK.
Several Long Track ventures were initiated in the UK in the
'seventies following initial stagings in North Wales and Kent, -
listed below - , though none were British championships as, despite
claims in some publications, such a title was never established.

Promoted
as Long Track meetings as opposed to grass track racing, (though
Astra MCC used the term 'Speed Track' for the Lydden meetings), most
were run by, or in junction with, local motorcycle clubs, with
surfaces varying from grass, sand, shale, or crushed limestone, and
were held to attract both the top speedway riders and, hopefully, the
travelling speedway supporters: other clubs continued their meetings
as Grass Track competitions but with the added participation of world
class speedway stars and continental grass/long track riders, e.g.
at Ludlow and Driffield, where Ivan Mauger had successes in 1975 and
'80. (These are not included here: Grass Track champions are listed
elsewhere. n.b. Hereford, in '76 ran the "Grass Track GP",
in '77 the "Long Track GP", in '78 the (official) "European
Grass Track Chmpshp".)

(Lt: Ole Olsen at Prestatyn,1969; note hub brake and 3
levers.)In
more recent times, since the LT World Championship became a GP series
in 1997, the UK has staged rounds at the grass circuits of
Abingdon(2x) and Collier St. Tonbridge(2x) between '98 and '03, but
it is the 1000m Skegness 'Lincolnshire Poacher' course that claims
the fastest UK circuit, and which hosted the 2011 European Grass
Track Championship.

Chris Pusey & Peter Collins, at Kendal 1972

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

.

- BRITISH SAND RACING CHAMPIONSHIP.

Bike
racers in the U.K. have often taken the opportunity to practice on
wide open beaches, - Ainsdale Sands in Lancashire gave many Liverpool
and Belle Vue novices including the Craven brothers, their first
opportunity - , but in the Channel Islands a beach is the only venue
for any off-road track racing. Sand Racing had been held on Guernsey
beaches since before World War 2, organised by the Guernsey
Motorcycle & Car Club who today stage the ACU British Sand Racing
Championship for solo and sidecar machines. Local
Guernsey boy Hugh Saunders was one of only a few Channel Islanders to
have made it into speedway, having practiced sliding on sand at the
end of the '60s, before establishing himself at Hackney and Rye house
throughout the 1970s. In the '80s Marcus Bisson from Jersey rode
speedway for Weymouth and for Poole before winning Sand Championship
races in both the 250cc and 500cc classes in 1988. When motor racing on public roads was banned in the UK in the
1920s enthusiasts on 2 and 4 wheels turned to sand beaches where flat
straights of sufficient length were to be found and speed record
attempts and competitive racing of cars and motorcycles became very
popular, the latter embracing sprints, trials and circuit events.
Both stripped-down road bikes and purpose-built off-road machines
competed in club-organised Sand Races on the foreshores of resorts, -
where spectator number often reached 5 figures - , as well as in more
remote locations, a phenomenon that continued well after WWII. A
formal British Sand Racing Championship was inaugurated in the 1970s
following an unofficial try-out and the competition continued until
1998 with a full range of solo classes, from 125cc to
1000cc/Unlimited, plus sidecars. In this era multiple rounds were
staged principally in the North-East at Wallasey and Southport, the
North-West at Redcar and Filey, and the Channel Isles of Jersey and
Guernsey. Other clubs, both ACU and AMCA, in Port Talbot, in
Lincolnshire, and on the Isle of Man, also staged successful Sand
Race meetings. The Mablethorpe
Motor Cycle Sand Racing Club,
which unusually runs a winter season of race meetings, is now in its
46th year. At the Guernsey MC&CC meetings modified road machines
were used originally but in today's prestigious Condor Ferries
'SandAce' competition introduced in 2006, specialised 500cc GM and
Jawa 'slider' machines, i.e. in Grass/Long Track frames, are the
norm, solo bikes being supplemented in the last five years with
1000cc sidecars at the re-establishment of a 21st century British Championship. (Monthly club meetings in addition
feature MX, Junior and Cadet classes and a range of 4-wheel
categories.) In its earlier incarnation, winners of the British
Championship included John Whalley and Mike Clarke from Guernsey,
Honda-mounted Mike Baybutt, Wayne Holland and Andy Daniels from the
NW, but Stockport's Declan Eccles, also on Honda, excelled with wins
in all classes throughout the '80s decade and onward. For the
present day Guernsey one-day championship a
track of approx. 800 metres is laid out by cones, mindful of tidal
condition for the day. The field can comprise around 24 solo
participants, plus 16 sidecar crewsand
include
many top UK national and international grass track and long track
riders as well as local racers from Guernsey and Jersey. Each
takes part in four heats with the highest scoring 8 solos and 6
sidecars qualifying for their respective “sudden death” finals.
The finishing positions in the finals determine the overall result.

Grass-tracker Mitch Godden (right) took
all but one of the SandAce titles before moving over to 3 wheels,
while south-coast speedway and grass racer Danny Warwick became a 3x
ACU champ. In 2013 it was necessary to decide the outcome by ballot
with only half of the race programme completed. Warwick, Rodney
McDonald and Andrew Appleton were all level, with a perfect score
from their two heats when disaster struck and two major accidents on
the extremely wet and windy circuit forced the meeting to be
abandoned. The current 2016 champion is the former 3x Youth world
Track Racing champ Zach Wajtknecht.

n.b:
At places like Weston-Super-mare, Weymouth and Skegness an annual
event of a different form of foreshore racing, more often termed
'Beach Racing' or 'BeachX', an off-shoot of Enduro and MX,
incorporates jumps and dunes, natural or man-made, lasting up to 3
hours in duration with fields of several hundred riders. These
competitions are not
addressed here.